


A Day at the Beach

by NotASpaceAlien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Picnics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-24 21:25:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4935883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale meets Crowley at the beach and doesn't tell him they expect additional company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day at the Beach

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/128228162090/a-day-at-the-beach

The air was heavy with brine. Crowley could taste it with his tongue when he decided to flick it out, which was occasionally. His eyes were closed, so it was nice to smell the people around him as they came and went. Naps were something best enjoyed in human form,* but he didn’t have to shed all his reptilian characteristics.

 

* * *

*Snakes don’t have eyelids, and closing his eyes was part of the experience for Crowley.

* * *

 

Aziraphale came upon Crowley like this, fanned out on the beach, and said, “Good Heavens!”

“Language,” said Crowley, morphing his tongue back into something that was more adept at human speech. He lifted his sunglasses to look at the angel.

  
“Crowley, your-,” the angel began.

  
Crowley sat up and looked at his wings, their royal blue bulk stretched out to their full length on the sand. “My wings? What about them?”

  
“They’re out where everyone can see them!”

“Oh, come off it, angel. I’ve convinced everyone not to notice them. It’s not really that hard. Most of these people would hardly take notice if left alone.”

Aziraphale looked at the other beachgoers, most of whom were reading novels or on their phones or sleeping, realized it was true, and shrugged. He set the picnic basket down and rolled out his own towel.

  
Both were surprised that the other had worn regular swim trunks, though neither thought it proper to mention so.**

 

* * *

**Crowley was surprised Aziraphale had worn a modern bathing suit, having half-expected him to drag out some archaic men’s one-piece. Aziraphale had come prepared to get an eyeful of Crowley in a thong or some other piece that would either tempt or make others uncomfortable.

* * *

 

Crowley turned over, whapping Aziraphale with his wing in the process, and lay on his stomach, savoring the feeling of the sand on his belly. It reminded him vaguely of how he would sun himself as a snake, as did the warmth of the sun beating on his back and his broad wings.

  
“Would you like some sunscreen?” said Aziraphale, rifling in his bag. “I wouldn’t want you to get-”

  
“Yes, yes,” said Crowley, cutting him off before he could start going on about the risks of sun poisoning and skin cancer.

  
Aziraphale took this as his invitation to start rubbing the lotion on Crowley’s back. The demon hadn’t meant it as such, but he hardly felt the need to shoo the angel away from massaging him.

  
“Crowley,” said Aziraphale.

  
“Hm?” said Crowley, looking up at him, squinting against the sun which blazed from behind his head like a halo.

  
Aziraphale smeared a fingerful of sunscreen down his nose.

  
“Thank you,” said Crowley, a tad wryly, laying his head back down on the soft sand.

  
“There they are!” said a voice in the distance, and Crowley shot upright, because he recognized it, and feared it.

  
It was Adam Young, coming over a sand dune, with the rest of the Them behind him, decked out in bathing suits and towels and coolers and inner tubes and the like. Adam waved to them as Dog dashed out from his legs and rushed forward, barking excitedly.

  
Crowley immediately wrenched his wings in. “You didn’t tell me _he_ was coming.”

  
“Come now, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, beginning to unpack their lunch—buns and salami and pristine square slices of yellow cheese and crisp lettuce and other things people associate with words like _wholesome_. “Adam deserves to have some support from the few people who actually fully remember what happened. After staying away for so long, it only seems right to—ahh—get to know him a bit better, don’t you think?”

  
What Aziraphale meant by “staying away for so long” was obvious to Crowley, even if Aziraphale wouldn’t admit it: It had been a while since the Almostgeddon, and Aziraphale had just now worked up the courage to actually contact Adam again. Crowley had the same feelings, but had no such trouble admitting them: He was uncomfortable around someone who could wipe him out of existence by sneezing, and was not confident in his ability to avoid making such a person angry at him, especially when he was eleven—

  
Well, not eleven anymore. But still. Crowley was aware he was bloody good at getting into hot water with people much more powerful than him for seemingly no reason.

  
“Hello again!” said Adam, spearheading the group. Crowley noticed that Brian had gotten significantly hairier since the last time he had seen him, and that Pepper was beginning to fill out the top of her bathing suit, and that Wensleydale was much taller and ganglier. Adam, by comparison, still looked—

  
“Is he going to stay eleven forever?” muttered Crowley to Aziraphale while they were still out of earshot.

  
“I’m sure he’s not doing it on purpose, Crowley, as soon as he realizes that he’s supposed to be going through puberty he’ll catch up with no ill effects.” He waved at the Them. “Hello! You’re just in time for lunch!”

  
In a second, they were swarmed with children who settled around the picnic basket like a gaggle of ducklings, shedding beach gear into a big pile that surrounded them like a pile of leaves fallen from a tree in autumn. They all took turns telling everyone who would listen about how school had gone, about how they had spent their summer so far, about their fights with the Johnsonites, about how Dog had met a nice bitch and had fathered a litter of puppies that smelled suspiciously like brimstone—

  
Crowley hung back, only speaking to the Them to answer when spoken to, shrinking away from Adam pathetically when the boy tried to engage him.

  
Eventually Adam threw a Frisbee, and Dog nearly lost his mind with excitement chasing after it. The rest of the Them grabbed their inner tubes and snorkels and boards and departed towards the ocean with such vigor they kicked up sand in their wake.

  
Dog brought the Frisbee back and set it directly in Aziraphale’s lap. The angel briefly tried to persuade him to take it Adam instead, but after a few futile moments he hauled himself off the beach and moved to run with the dog.

  
He moved surprisingly gracefully for having a corporation that size, Crowley thought, mostly as a way to distract himself from the fact that it was just him and Adam alone on the picnic blanket together, and should he get up too—would that be rude—would it be rude to just sit here—should he say something—

  
“So you’re really a snake, right?” said Adam, stretching his legs out and wiggling his toes in the sand.

 

Crowley went rigid. “In a manner of speaking,” he answered, trying to keep the misery out of his voice. “I was before.”

  
Adam examined a small crab by his foot. “What kinda snake? What did you look like?”

  
“A big black snake, actually,” Crowley answered, painfully aware that he wanted to remain a human at this point, and that if Adam wanted him to be a snake he _would_ be, and for as long as Adam pleased.

  
“”spect it was a bow constrictor,” said Adam. “Those great big snakes that live in trees and wrap around people and swallow them whole. Dunno why they’re called that. I don’t even think they’d be able to wear a bow.”

  
“Something like that,” said Crowley. He began to flounder when he noticed Adam was looking at him with a scrutinizing expression, and added “sir,” while averting his eyes.

  
Adam gave a sigh. “Is that what this is about?”

  
“Erm…”

  
Adam sighed again and flopped out, starfish on the sand. “Just my luck, I’m the only boy in England who gets to meet a real live demon and _he’s_ scared of _me_. It isn’t proper.”

Crowley felt himself flush from his nose to the tips of his ears.

  
Adam levered himself upright, swiping the sand out of his hair like a cat scratching behind its ear. “Well, I mean, you don’t have to worry about me sending you back to Hell or anything. I mean, it wouldn’t be right, trying to exercise a demon who wasn’t even trying to possess you or anything.*** Not proper at all.” He looked over the sand to where Aziraphale was throwing the Frisbee for Dog. “You’re both all right. I mean, if I was going to kick one of you two off earth, I’d probably pick him. What a pratt. You’re at least kind of cool.”

 

* * *

***Adam had a vague idea of what to do if a nasty demon had possessed your friend; it involved a lot of chanting and drawing circles and maybe wrestling the person to the ground, which is why he figured it was called exercise.

* * *

 

The tension was significantly lessened after that. Crowley worked up the nerve to get off the sand and splash around in the water, and Pepper challenged him to see who could dive and hold their breath for the longest. †

 

* * *

†Crowley won. Pepper accused him of cheating, even though he hadn’t.

* * *

 

  
Brian managed to mimic surfing on a low wave. Pepper said that she thought she could see clams on the bottom underwater, and wondered if they had any pearls in them. Before anyone could accuse her of being interested in something girly, she said that pirates had pearls in their treasure chests.

  
Wensleydale said that they weren’t the right kind of clams, and besides the odds of getting one with a pearl were so low that you’d have to pick through them all day just to find even one tiny one. Crowley dived to the bottom and pulled one up, and handed it to Pepper, and when she pried it open there was an enormous and perfect pearl sitting there. ‡

 

* * *

‡Pepper did not accuse him of cheating, even though he had.

* * *

 

By the time the sun was setting and those among them with infernal origins starting having their eyes glow in the darkness, they were all thoroughly tired out, and ate what remained of their picnic lunch before ambling back home filled with the particular sense of wellbeing one has after a day spent hard at play in the water.


End file.
